


The Night We Met

by Shinsun



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Ambiguity, Angst, Canon Compliant, Five Stages of Grief, I guess until it isn't, M/M, Meta, Teiko Flashbacks, Temporal Paradox, Time Travel, in which Aomine is visited by the ghost of basketball past, trapped in the body of puremine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28278945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinsun/pseuds/Shinsun
Summary: After Touou's overwhelming victory against Seirin, Aomine is transported back in time to the night he and Kuroko first met.Trapped in the past, as he relives his old Teiko days knowing full well how things turn out, he can't help wondering if there's a purpose to his being sent back... of if it's all part of some cosmic joke.
Relationships: Aomine Daiki/Kuroko Tetsuya
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	1. Denial

_I had all and then most of you_ _  
_ _some and now none of you_

_Take me back to the night we met_

The heat wave the week before the Inter-High was hands-down the hottest and wettest it had been all summer. The moment the sun crept up to bake the dewdrops off the grass, the air became a thick, heavy cloud that was difficult to move through let alone breathe, pressing in obtrusively like a screen of sweaty hands. By noon the heat was so intense that even the insects stopped droning; the blacktop a sizzling wasteland that could grill bare skin and melt the soles of shoes that stood still on it too long.

It was the humidity that got to Aomine more than anything. The moisture in the air that made the trees and even the buildings seem to sway and sag would cause him to wake up swimming in his own sweat if he happened to doze off on the roof, and cover from the sun was scarce even on the ground, jealously guarded by other suffering students searching for relief from the malevolent rays. He was fortunate enough not to be prone to sunburn, at least. 

Still, it was almost enough annoyance to drive him back indoors, back to the gym where the air conditioning was patchy at best, but better than nonexistent, and there were ceiling fans mounted to the rafters to pick up any slack. Almost.

The last game he’d played was so all-around disappointing that right now he felt a bit nauseous even looking at a basketball court. It would pass, it always did, but until he banished the twinge of unwanted emotion and the echo of wide, distressed blue eyes from his mind, there was no reason to subject himself to any of that shit. He doubted he’d be missed at practice, anyhow.

Now that the day was ending, it wasn’t necessarily any cooler, but the majority of Touou’s enrollment were starting to drift home or busy themselves with extracurriculars around this time, so shade was no longer in high demand. The late afternoon air was still and quiet with hardly a breeze, and Aomine had seized a generous patch at the roots of an old tree all to himself. 

Lying back cross-legged against the ground with the knobbly roots at his back, watching the pieces of sky that broke through the leaves through half-lidded eyes, he’d almost gotten comfortable enough to drift right off to sleep. He’d skipped his midday nap today due to the punishing heat, and though it was still too early for his after-school nap, he had nothing else pressing to do if he chose to pass a little time that way.

He closed his eyes, and though his tree was all the way across campus from the gym, he imagined for a moment that he could hear the squeak of shoes on polished wood, the drumming of a basketball somewhere in the distance.

Like he said, nothing else pressing to do.

Letting out a deep sigh, he scrubbed a hand up into his damp, sweaty hair. It had been a hot night like this when he’d first met Tetsu, hadn’t it? The unseasonably high temperature persisting long into the evening hours when he stumbled upon him in Teiko’s fourth gym… it seemed like a lifetime ago now. 

And he really shouldn’t be thinking about that. 

Irritated and absently rubbing a sore spot in his chest, he resigned himself to forgoing his nap until his head was safe to be in again, and reopened his eyes.

The sky above him was almost pitch black. Aomine blinked; he must have fallen asleep after all, without realizing... but shit, how long had he been out? He couldn’t make out the branches of the tree he’d started to drift off under, and upon sitting up in confusion, he was met with an even stranger sight.

Across from him was the closed door of a gym, a yellow strip of light creeping around the frame and illuminating the steps in front of it. He could just make out the rhythmic _thud-thud_ of a ball striking the floor, the muted rattle as it hit a backboard, and the squeaking skid of footsteps.

Shoving onto his feet, he glanced around before hesitantly approaching the door. The place was tiny compared to Touou’s main gymnasium, but though it was just a plain cement box in every way, it still seemed oddly, almost creepily familiar. Like he’d been here before. The door itself towered over him as he reached out with some trepidation to grasp the handle, the closer sound of focused dribbling ringing in his ears. The hand that closed around the metal bar barely felt like his own.

As he pulled back and opened the door, a tendril of cooler air washed over him, blowing his sweaty bangs back from his face. And after steeling himself and poking his head through the gap, he released his breath in a rush and crossed over the threshold, because it was just what he expected to see.

Empty.

Swept and tidy, the glossy floorboards gleaming under the ceiling lights, a lonely basketball hoop mounted on the opposite wall, the net swaying gently as if in a light breeze, though the ball he’d just heard make it swish was nowhere in sight. 

Oh yeah, he’d definitely been here before. Not just in this gym, but in this moment.

“Excuse me—”

Just like then, Aomine jumped out of his entire skin, a wordless, high-pitched, undignified _shriek_ bursting from his chest as he clutched a hand to it and whipped around. 

His heart kept on hammering even as his breathing resumed, because standing right there in the previously empty gym, holding a basketball in both hands and peering at him curiously, was Tetsu. 

But it wasn’t Tetsu as he’d left him last, broken and shaking with humiliation, staring at his back like the vanishing shore as he was dragged into an unforgiving sea of defeat. It was Tetsu as he remembered him on that sweltering night eons ago; baby-faced, Bambi-eyed, ball-toting Tetsu, looking up into his face with confusion, but no ill will toward him. Yet.

_This is a dream._

“I’m sorry,” Tetsu said, shaking his head once. “Aomine-kun, right?” 

Aomine thought his jaw might have dislocated. Thought his eyes might pop from his head if they were any wider. Thought he might have been caught staring just a little too long to pass off as mere surprise.

He shut his mouth so fast his teeth hurt, his skull hurt, _something_ inside him hurt, and nodded his head numbly.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, his voice wrung out high and tight in the back of his throat. He doubted he could make himself look away right now if Tetsu put a gun to his head and demanded it. “That’s me.”

 _This is a_ **_dream_ **.

“I didn’t think I would run into you here,” Tetsu went on, rolling the ball between his hands, almost fidgeting with it. God, had his fingers really been that stubby?

“Um…” Aomine said eloquently, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, and pausing as he got a glimpse of his own prepubescent hand. ...Well that was trippy. “I — same, uh… I thought the gym was empty.”

He hadn’t thought anything of the sort, but his brain was kind of jammed at the moment, and he didn’t know what else to say. It probably didn’t matter that much, if this was a dream… but if this _was_ a dream, he got the feeling if he said so out loud, then he’d immediately wake up. Was it worth testing? He wondered if he could pinch himself without Tetsu noticing.

 _No, of course it’s a dream. What else could it be?_

Dream-Tetsu seemed to be rather amused by his statement. Or put-out, or… something. Damn, he was still so hard to read, even before he mastered the poker face that made him disappear completely in the blink of an eye.

“People don’t tend to notice me much,” he said simply, with a wry smile. “I’ve even heard a few say this gym is haunted by a ghost.”

“Well, a basketball-playing ghost would probably be pretty cool,” Aomine shrugged, shoving his shrunken hands in the pockets of his shorts and unable to reconcile with the sound of his own voice. Before his balls decided to fucking plummet, it had almost been reedy, hadn’t it? Something he could only notice and cringe about with the advent of hindsight.

“I apologize,” Tetsu said, propping the basketball against his hip. His arm just barely wrapped all the way around it. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself properly. Kuroko Tetsuya, glad to meet you.”

Aomine finally managed to look away as Tetsu inclined his head, releasing the death-grip of his clear blue gaze. He sighed with a shudder of emotion he couldn’t begin to describe. ‘ _Glad to meet him’,_ was he?

“Sure,” he said tonelessly, staring at the spotless hoop on the other side of the gym. “Same here.”

Tetsu seemed to notice where he was looking, though he was probably misinterpreting the expression Aomine could bet was on his face.

“...Would you like to practice with me?” he asked, holding his ball out to Aomine like a gift. As if the privilege, the _joy_ of playing basketball was something he could offer him. Something he still deserved. 

His eyes looked warm and earnest, and so large in his face that they all but swallowed Aomine whole. Yanking his hands out of his shorts, he lowered his shoulders, and nodded before he could think to change his mind.

“Okay.”

_I don’t know what I’m supposed to do_ _  
_ _haunted by the ghost of you_

_Take me back to the night we met_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Night We Met - Lord Huron](https://open.spotify.com/track/0QZ5yyl6B6utIWkxeBDxQN)
> 
> I don't know where it came from, but the idea for this fic popped into my head all of a sudden last summer and I just had to entertain it (though it's been waiting half-done in my drafts while I finished up ANR). Nobody writes Teiko AoKuro anymore. Nobody writes time travel AoKuro, period.
> 
> This was originally meant to be a oneshot, but you know how it goes. Actually, the flow of Aomine's internal monologue kind of takes me back to If, but unlike that fic, this one has an actual outline and direction to go in. Sorry my fics are kind of all over the place lately... I've always got multiple projects going at once, but I can't seem to control the speed at which they all get done.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always lovely, feed the beast!


	2. Anger

_Why do I feel so let down_  
_when this is how it's always been?_

_May seem like a small thing now  
but it's deep under my skin_

Aomine had fully expected to wake up back under the tree at school. Back in his proper timeline, with only a half-remembered, confusingly bittersweet dream to point to for the sickening ache in his chest. But when he opened his eyes the next morning, he was in the same bed he’d closed them in, his fingers on the pillow in front of his face still a good deal shorter than they ought to be.

 _Is this a Beautiful Dreamer* situation?_ he wondered as he dragged himself to the edge of his bed, squinting at his skinny hairless legs and undersized feet that dangled toward the floor. 

No, he realized, after he arrived at school, that wasn’t quite it. This wasn’t a loop of the previous day, this was the start of an entirely new day… just one that he still didn’t belong in. The people around him were the same; Satsuki chatting up a storm once she caught him in the courtyard, Murasakibara making hopeful eyes at his last onigiri in the cafeteria, Midorima being his annoyingly pompous, uptight self at after-school cleaning, it was all the same… The same as it had been three _years_ ago.

 _Reliving middle school,_ he thought ruefully as he trudged into the gym. _Fan-fucking-tastic._

Why he was bothering to attend practice -- practice that he didn’t need and that he’d _already fucking been to_ \-- was beyond him, but he thought he might have gotten an idea when something stumbled in his gut at the sight of Tetsu there. Tetsu had started this. He couldn’t begin to guess why or how, but something was telling him, yelling like a bullhorn in his ear, that he was most likely the only one who could end it. 

So he slogged through practice with him, ran the rudimentary drills on autopilot, not looking at the ball or his teammates as he easily maneuvered around them. There had _barely_ been an adjustment to his sudden decrease in height and muscle mass when he played with Tetsu the night before, and by now his ball-handling felt no different than if he were practicing normally. Same old thing. No effort required on his part. Total fucking snorefest.

He couldn’t seem to help glancing over at Tetsu every few minutes, though. Watching him dribble around traffic cones with utmost concentration and hunker down to aim and shoot. Fumbling the ball often, passing with none of the speed and finesse Aomine had come to expect from him. As the clock ticked and the daylight burned outside the gym, he found himself snorting and all but stomping with aggravation. What good was rewatching Tetsu as a beginner supposed to do him? What was he supposed to be learning here?

Maybe nothing. Maybe there was no lesson, no deeper meaning to whatever strange, possibly supernatural occurrence had conspired to put him here. Maybe it was all part of some cruel cosmic joke, making him go through this again, retaining the memories and the knowledge of how it would inevitably play out in the end. Still… he just couldn’t shake off the notion, the demand, that he must have been sent here for a reason.

Yeah yeah, he’d been a dick. He’d thoughtlessly shoved Tetsu away and probably broken him -- _repent, sinner_ \-- all that bullshit, but what was acknowledging any of that now supposed to _change?_ What was he supposed to do about the fact that other people were weak and he wasn’t? Was he supposed to feel humbled by Tetsu and his own beginnings and come away with some newfound appreciation for his strength? Fuck _that._ Even if he couldn’t channel his full power while in this scrawny body, he was still playing circles around everyone else, and watching Tetsu repeatedly fail even _very basic_ _tasks_ wasn’t endearing Aomine to him at all… it was only making him grind his teeth.

The day’s practice ended and he still hadn’t arrived at an answer. And as he changed and gathered up his shit in the locker room, it was with a growing sense of anger and hopelessness. He didn’t understand. Whatever was going on here, he didn’t get it, and if today was supposed to be the benchmark, then he really didn’t think he could take much more of this. Fuck, he’d thought he was bored _before..._

“Aomine-kun,” Tetsu prompted at his elbow, all quiet and unassuming.

Aomine promptly banged his forehead on the open locker door, swore out loud, and turned to face him.

“What?” he snapped, holding the site of impact and blinking back pained tears.

“You were amazing at practice today,” Tetsu said, the tiniest crease of concern forming between his eyes. “Sorry. Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Aomine grit out, throwing his school bag over his shoulder. “You know if you gave a guy a little _warning_ and didn’t pop up like a goddamn ninja --”

“That aside,” Tetsu smiled at him, possibly amused, “I was going to say that I’m swinging by Maji on my way home tonight. I thought perhaps you might like to join me?”

Aomine didn’t know what he might have done to give him that impression, and his first impulse was to spit a derisive ‘ _fuck no,’_ and be on his way... but then he considered grimly that that probably wasn’t how the game was played. The more time he spent kicking and fighting and trying to resist it, the less likely he was to find a way out of here. There was only so long he could stand to let this drag.

Clenching his teeth, he swallowed past his irritation and the lump he could feel forming at his temple, and finally just shrugged vaguely, “Yeah, I could eat.”

“I should think so,” Tetsu said, still smiling. “You certainly seemed to be working up an appetite...”

Aomine wanted to say something like ‘ _That wasn’t even a workout, that was dull as all hell,’_ but he held back again and just grunted in acknowledgement. Better that way, probably. Safer.

They left the gym and walked together into the waiting twilight. Aomine kept his gaze firmly on the ground before him, Tetsu trailing like an amiable specter at his side, politely refraining from pointing out his obvious foul mood.

So he was supposed to keep hanging around Tetsu until he figured something out, was he? Fine, whatever. That didn’t mean he had to like it. 

At least there was some odd comfort in the familiarity of the Maji itself. No matter where he went, no matter what time period he was stuck in, it was still the same restaurant and the same food; as long as he didn’t look at his own hands or the person hovering at his side, he could almost pretend for a moment that things were normal.

“A small vanilla shake, please.”

He huffed a breath as he collected his own purchase. Then again, maybe not.

Tetsu continued to follow him as he shoved out the door and took to the darkening street, poking his straw between his lips and watching him with pensive, too-blue eyes. Honestly, Aomine didn’t know why he was sticking around at all. Even if it was in his own best interest to stay near Tetsu until this bizarre turn of events righted itself -- or at least it seemed that way to him -- he doubted he made for very good company right now. He realized that, but still, Tetsu trailed after him, idly slurping his shake all the way.

Stopping at the edge of the curb while the light changed, Aomine hung his head with a defeated sigh. There was a script dangling in front of him, he could all but see it in his head. He remembered his lines, the direction hadn’t changed… but it didn’t matter. He just wasn’t that person anymore.

“So, uh…” he prompted instead, stepping into the crosswalk and out on a limb. “How’s practice going?”

“Total disaster,” Tetsu reported gravely around the straw in his mouth. Aomine snorted a laugh, despite himself.

It had been such a long time since they were on _joking_ terms; long enough that he’d almost forgotten about Tetsu’s deadpan sense of humor. 

“But that’s probably alright,” Tetsu went on, with a ghost of a smile. “It’s difficult for me to keep up with everyone, you especially, but that just means that I have something to shoot for.”

“Mm,” Aomine hummed, noncommittal enough to maybe not sound _openly_ discouraging. It was the best he could really hope to convey under these circumstances.

They walked in silence for a moment, the only sound the rush of cars passing by, the amber glow of numerous headlights throwing shadows across the pavement at their feet.

“What inspires you to play, Aomine-kun?” Tetsu asked eventually, tipping his head up to seek out his gaze. Somewhat reluctantly, Aomine gave it to him.

“Hm?”

“You must have practiced hard, for a long time, to get to where you are… where does your drive come from?”

Aomine lowered his head. _Drive, huh…_

It was difficult to remember now, what he was even sticking with basketball for. He’d been doing it for so long that it was hard to imagine not doing it, even after it had been worn down and ruined for him by watching his opponents lose the will to fight, over and over… but he didn’t know if he could explain that to Tetsu without revealing something he probably wouldn’t believe.

“I don’t know,” he said at first, morosely. Then, “I don’t know… how to stop playing basketball. I don’t know why I do it, really, it’s just... part of me.”

Tetsu said nothing to that, for several seconds, and when Aomine dared to glance back, he found him smiling slightly, as if to himself... as if he was actually pleased by that answer. 

_What?_ “What?” he asked, staring at his face instead of where he was going. 

“It’s -- you’re... an inspiration to me,” Tetsu said earnestly, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “I watch you play and I think, ‘I want to be like that,’ and that pushes me to work harder and do the best I can… so I can stand on the court with the team, with you, someday too.”

Aomine stopped as well, scratching his ear with the hand not currently holding a bag of cheeseburgers. _Sheesh_. What the hell was he supposed to do with that? 

Not that he wasn’t aware that Tetsu had looked up to him. There was a time -- a time that he was currently stranded in, in fact -- where he’d once professed to feel the same. It was just… hearing him say that, the hope in his voice, and knowing with the certainty of hindsight that he was going to pull it off one day… he couldn’t say what, but it caused something to tighten inside him, somewhere near his throat. 

“Here,” he said finally, reaching into the paper bag and pulling out a neatly-wrapped burger, passing it over to Tetsu. Tetsu just blinked at him in surprise, so he jerked his chin in the direction of the empty park at the end of the street. “Let’s sit a minute and talk.”

_Standing where I'm supposed to be_  
_going nowhere, thanks to you_

_Oh, would it really put you out_  
_to make me feel significant?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Your Way or the Rope - Rag'n'Bone Man](https://open.spotify.com/track/4v4JL46Vg1kB78xArvfJ99)
> 
> *Footnote: “Beautiful Dreamer” refers to Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer bc I don’t think your average Japanese kid is going to know what Groundhog Day is. 
> 
> Maybe I can keep alternating between updating this fic and euts until I run out of material for one or the other. Yeah, that sounds like a plan. I enjoyed writing the internal monologue for this one a lot, and the shorter chapters are a nice respite from my usual word count.  
> Thanks for reading! Comments are always lovely <3


End file.
